ABCs of local school safety changing in a violent world

Those are what stand between students and disaster in school districts across the country.

How serious is the situation?

Last week, police held at least three active-shooter drills in Ulster County.

Others have been held recently in Orange and Sullivan counties too. They get little in the way of publicity, but they continue.

There is no end in sight.

Why?

The drills became required learning in most schools since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Conn., 10 month ago. Twenty-six people — 20 students and six adults — were shot and killed by a gunman, who took his own life.

Just last week, two teachers were killed in separate incidents. In Sparks, Nev., a 12-year-old boy killed a teacher and wounded two classmates before taking his own life. In Danvers, Mass., a 14-year-old boy was charged with the murder of a popular high school teacher.

Not only the police are being trained; kids are learning, too.

"They teach us how to react in an emergency, and it's like training," said Rhianna Brodhead, a freshman at Kingston High School, which recently conducted a lockdown drill.

"The teachers lock the doors and turn off the lights. Then we're supposed to stand in the shadows or a safe place in the classroom where no one can see us," said Brandyn Ruiz, a Kingston High sophomore. "If anything serious did happen, we'd be prepared for it," he added.

If mid-Hudson parents have raised concerns or suggestions about safety strategies to school officials, the schools are not about to go public with it.

"We keep that kind of information close to the vest," said Doug Murphy, who heads the Monticello School District's safety committee.

"We don't want to tip off people who might be prone to violence," added Orange County Undersheriff Kenneth Jones, who pointed out that there are "no cookie-cutter responses" to school violence.

There is, however, "an overall model that gets adapted according to the data that we receive during the course of an emergency," said Jones, who confirmed that school districts across the region have been conducting more drills recently.

Much of the focus, he said, has been on active-shooter drills, where law enforcement agencies and school staff train on how to respond if a shooter was to storm a school building.

Since the Sandy Hook shootings, hardly a week goes by without at least one or two school safety drills conducted somewhere in the county, said Ulster County Undersheriff Frank Faluotico.

"The (shooting) incidents take place in different types of schools and different geographies — which is why we make changes each time we drill," said Faluotico, who said he recommends training for anyone who does business inside a school, including delivery people, for instance.

What set the recent Nevada shooting apart from some other cases is that the violence occurred outside the school building. "The sad truth is, unless an armed police officer is there when a tragedy occurs, they won't get there in time to intervene," said Jones.

The Monroe-Woodbury school district, for instance, tries to address different situations "that could possibly happen in or on a school campus" by having students practice a series of different drills, said Frank Squillante, director of security for the Monroe-Woodbury School District.

According to school officials, drilling is a continuous process in local districts. Afterward, law enforcement experts sit down with the school officials to go over the results. If there's need for improvement, more drills are conducted.

"We're trying to create muscle memory so, when, God forbid, a crisis day happens, folks will know their roles and be able to get right into them," said Ivan Katz, Fallsburg superintendent. "We know that mistakes are going to be made. The goal is to minimize them," he added.

Some dramatic changes were made to Kingston High School, for example, in order to make its nearly 2,000 student more secure. The district ended its decades-old practice of allowing parents to pick up and drop off their kids along the horseshoe drive in front of the school on Broadway.

There were times when as many as 200 cars created a traffic jam in the school driveway and made it too easy for strangers to get in through the front door, said Principal Adrian Manuel.

Now, there's a team of security guards — armed resource officers from the Kingston Police Department to cover the six buildings on 14 acres.

Manuel said he believes parents have learned to accept a "cultural change" for the sake of their children's safety. Pickups and dropoffs are now done along the school's side streets.

"It's what's needed to be done to meet the needs of 21st century security and avoid potential crises that could occur," said Manuel.